The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for controlling appliances and other dangerous devices, such as microwave ovens, stoves and irons, and more particularly, to a vision-based method and apparatus for automatically detecting the presence of a child and to automatically activate a child safety feature.
The marketplace offers a number of consumer appliances, such as microwave ovens, stoves and irons, that provide an ever-growing number of features intended to increase the safety and convenience of these appliances. Many appliances, for example, have a child safety feature that prevents the appliance from being easily activated by a child. While such child safety features have significantly reduced the occurrence of injuries to children, they typically require the affirmative action of an adult or another user to manually activate the child safety feature.
In addition, children may be exposed to danger when they are merely in the vicinity of certain appliances or other dangerous zones. For example, children may get burned if they touch an oven or range that is in use. Similarly, a backyard pool is another well-known hazard that requires diligent supervision of children by an adult. A number of perimeter monitoring tools exist that allow such dangerous zones to be protected by activating an alarm when a child or another object enters the protected zone. Generally, such perimeter monitoring tools employ audio or optical techniques to detect sound in a protected zone or to detect when an optical beam surrounding a protected zone has been broken, respectively. As a result, there is a significant potential for false alarms when objects other than a child, such as a pet or an authorized adult, enter the zone.
A need therefore exists for a method and apparatus for detecting the presence of a child and for automatically triggering the activation of a child safety feature or an alarm. A further need therefore exists for an appliance controller that prevents a child from utilizing a dangerous device or triggers an alarm to notify an adult of the presence of a child in a dangerous area.
Generally, a method and apparatus are disclosed for monitoring a location using vision-based technologies and to automatically trigger the activation of a child safety feature or an alarm when a child is detected. The disclosed child safety monitoring system includes one or more image capture devices that are focused on a given location. The captured images are processed by the child safety monitoring system to identify the presence of a child and to initiate an appropriate response, such as sending assistance, activating a child safety feature or triggering an alarm.
According to one aspect of the invention, a number of rules are utilized to define various child safety events. Each rule contains one or more conditions that must be satisfied in order for the rule to be triggered, and, optionally, a corresponding action-item that should be performed when the rule is satisfied, such as sending assistance, activating a child safety feature or triggering an alarm. At least one condition for each rule identifies a feature that must be detected in an image using vision-based techniques. Upon detection of a predefined child safety event, the corresponding action is performed by the child safety monitoring system.
A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as further features and advantages of the present invention, will be obtained by reference to the following detailed description and drawings.